Each week on the blog I get to share some of what I have seen, read, and found interesting and thought provoking over the past week. To help make sense of all of these links, I have grouped them by the following categories: Church and Ministry Thought & Practice; Cross-Sector Collaboration; Leadership Thought & Practice; Millennials; Neighbor Love; Social Media & Blogging; Stewardship; Vocation; and Miscellaneous. I hope you enjoy these links!

Church and Ministry Thought & Practice

For those of you preparing for worship or writing a sermon for this weekend, I have some helpful thoughts and commentaries to share. If you are following the revised common lectionary, David Lose shared and asked, “Pentecost 21B: Who Will You Serve?” Friend and professor Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis dug into the gospel passage more in thinking about, “The Ability of Ableness.”

Friend, pastor, and blogger Diane Roth shared about her “faith, in community,” and about how she has “Loved Sunday School.” In thinking about Sunday School Diane writes, “I have loved Sunday School, but I have to admit that, for a lot of churches, and a lot of children, it isn’t working. They are not learning the stories of the Bible, but most of all, they aren’t learning that other adults in the church care about them. But one of the gifts of the church is still relationships. It is a place where we can meet each other and know each other across generations, where we will realize that Forgiveness Is a Really Big Number, and where we can share stories and songs and pray and catch faith from one another. If only we will only make the space.” What do you think?

It’s generally not a good sign when church conflict makes it into the news, such is the case from the Twin Cities when you see a story about a “Church torn apart.”

In a couple weeks for Lutherans anyway, is an important day in the church year, Reformation Sunday. We’re also about 2 years shy of the 500th Anniversary of the start of the Reformation. In thinking about the Reformation, friend and Ph.D. student Tim Snyder writes, “Re-formed in God’s vision of love.”

Peter Economy unpacked, “4 Ways Millennials Are Changing the World.” Peter argues that, “As Millennials become more engaged in the world around us, they are changing it for the better in their own unique ways.” The ways he points to include that Millennials: challenge us to think qualitatively instead of quantitatively; they challenge old assumptions about careers and jobs; they challenge, ‘one size fits all’; and they challenge us to make decision making more distributive. What do you think?

If you haven’t seen it, the Fall 2015 issue of Word and World is out and it has a number of great articles under the broad theme of “Sports.” Check out these articles and good food for thought from authors including friend and pastor Aaron Fuller, professor Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto, and Rev. Dr. Rolf Jacobson.

That concludes this edition of the links. I hope you have enjoyed them. As always, if you have particular questions or topics for me to think about on the blog, please share them. Also, if there are things you would like to see included in the links, please let me know that too. Until next time, thank you for reading and being part of the conversation. Blessings on the rest of your week! -TS